Belmond Sanctuary Lodge

Belmond Sanctuary Lodge is the only hotel at the entrance to the Machu Picchu citadel — first through the gates at sunrise, still there once the day-trippers have left, with out-of-hours guided access to the ruins. Thirty-one rooms and suites in earthy textiles and unrendered stonework look over orchid gardens, hummingbirds and the peak of Huayna Picchu, from around fifteen square metres up to a terrace room with a lounge and dining table; the rooms are small, and the access is what you come for. Tampu Restaurant and Bar serves Peruvian and international cooking from on-site produce in a stone-and-wood room, and an open-air spa works among the orchid gardens with Huayna Picchu views. At around two thousand four hundred metres, the citadel sits lower than Cusco, and arrival is by the Hiram Bingham luxury train from Cusco and the bus up from Aguas Calientes, or on foot via the Inca Trail, the train winding through the Sacred Valley along the Urubamba River to Aguas Calientes before the final climb. The lodge sits in cloud forest at the citadel's very edge, the river far below, with full-board as standard. It is made for couples and culture-and-adventure travellers who want the citadel to themselves.